10 Book Challenge

40 Book Challenge

Camping Trip

We are going on a camping trip, but first we need to pack! Below are the definitions for 18 items you should bring camping. Enter a correct answer for each one to complete.

Community Connections

A list of activities to help you engage with your community in new and meaningful ways.

Escape the Mysterious

Your mission is to complete at least two of the escape rooms or murder mysteries.

Indoor Scavenger Hunt

Find all of the following items in your home.

Kindness Counts

Do something nice and show kindness to others! These activities are great ways to show your generosity.

Random Acts of Kindness

Small gestures make the most difference on a daily basis. It's easy to get so preoccupied with our own lives that we forget about others, but with just one simple act of kindness, we can change the way someone else's day goes, and we can better ourselves and the world in the process. This challenge is designed for you to take the time to do something for someone else — and hopefully they will pay it forward to the next person!

Reading Beyond

Go beyond just reading this summer! Mix up how or where you read, or maybe what you do after reading a book.

Challenge yourself to complete at least five tasks from the list below. How many can you complete?

Share the Joy

Let's work together! Complete the activities below with your little one.

The Five Practices Outside

There are five simple, powerful, and fun practices that parents/caregivers are encouraged to incorporate into their everyday lives that can help establish a strong foundation for early literacy. Those practices are: Reading, Writing, Talking, Singing, and Playing. Try to incorporate the outdoors in each practice and have fun! 

Read

Reading together develops vocabulary and comprehension, nurtures a love for reading, and motivates children to want to learn to read. Shared reading (interactive reading) is an important way to help children get ready to read. Reading with children will show how books and written language work and that stories have a beginning, middle and end.

Sing

Singing emphasizes many early literacy practices, and it contributes to oral language development by slowing down language and making it easier for children to hear the words. Singing is also a great way to increase children’s vocabulary as children’s songs and nursery rhymes include many new and uncommon words. Songs are a natural, fun way for children to learn language. When children sing, they hear different parts of words, pay attention to the rhythms and rhymes of language, and develop listening skills.

Talk

Talking with children helps them learn oral language, one of the most critical early literacy skills. Children learn about language by listening to parents and caregivers talk and joining in the conversation. Talking in a way that encourages children to talk will help them understand what they later read. When children listen to spoken words they learn: how letters and words sound, the meaning of words, how words can be put together to communicate ideas, information and feelings.

Write

Just like reading, writing teaches children that print has meaning, letters represent sounds, and written words represent the oral words they use every day. Scribbling and writing help children learn that written words stand for spoken language. For children, writing: begins with developing small finger muscles which will build dexterity for scribbling, then drawing, and eventually writing letters, helps develop hand-eye coordination, and helps build awareness that print has meaning.

Play

Play is an essential part of childhood and is one of the best ways to learn language and literacy skills. As children engage in many types of play and across many scenarios, they talk with a wide variety of adults and peers, therefore developing their oral language, narrative skills, and vocabulary. When children play, they: develop narrative skills through imaginary play, act out real situations, learn communication, cooperation, construction and much more!